


Tonight Will be the Night that I will Fall for You (Over Again)

by birdsflyhome



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Basically they fall apart then fall together, Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 13:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1942911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsflyhome/pseuds/birdsflyhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically they fall apart, but then they fall back together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight Will be the Night that I will Fall for You (Over Again)

**Author's Note:**

> From the song "Fall for You" by Second Hand Serenade

They’re civil tonight.

That’s the only thing Louis can think as they dance around each other during dinner. They’re civil, calm, subdued; everything they haven’t been within the past couple of weeks.

He can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.

Dinner is tense though, even as ‘civil’ as they are. There’s so much not being said, and glances not meeting glances, and not nearly enough attempts at awkward conversation.

It’s not them at all.

Harry sighs as he puts down his fork next to his plate, his dinner mostly untouched. Louis watches with careful eyes as he rises from his chair with ease (no more tangled feet under the table) and drops his plate in the sink. He leaves the room without a word and Louis feels the weight of the word press on his shoulders trying to do him in.

He doesn’t know how they got like this. They used to be stupid jokes, and constant touching, heart eyes, and lingering gazes. Now they’re reduced to silent dinners, or screaming matches, too much tension and not enough said. He hates it, and he hates how he doesn’t know how they ended up like this.

When Harry reemerges from the depths of their flat Louis is doing dishes in the sink and Harry has a packed bag slung on his shoulder. Louis immediately feels his stomach drop and he knows that the civility of the night was not a relief at all.

Harry looks broken as he stands in the door way to their kitchen. His shoulders are slumped and his eyes are sad and there’s a frown on his lips where a smile should be. “I think,” he starts, wetting his lips with his tongue. He looks away, at the front door, and then back again at Louis, sad determination set into his shoulders, the crinkles between his eyes. “I think I’m gonna stay at a hotel for a bit. Just a couple days, to give us some space.”

Louis doesn’t know what to say. He just stands with his back to the sink, water seeping into the bottom of his shirt, as he looks at Harry looking at him. When he nods his head he clenches his fists tightly on the counter behind him and hopes that Harry can tell just how much he doesn’t want him to go.

Harry doesn’t notice. He gives a small shake of his head then rounds the corner and is gone, the click of the door sounding like the final ring. Louis wants to be mad, he does, but it’s his fault too, innit? He let them get this way, he let Harry walk, he didn’t say anything. But what could he say? He doesn’t know.

He slowly sinks to the ground folding himself over his knees and breathing deeply. He can feel his throat beginning to close and Hopelessness settles her gentle hands on his back as he finally cries the way he wouldn’t let himself for weeks.

It doesn’t help at all.

●●●●●

It’d been five days since Harry walked out, two days since Louis hadn’t gone to work, and too many days that Louis’ been miserable. All he’s been able to do is sit in his living room, staring at the door, hoping that Harry would walk through.

Of course he doesn’t.

Louis debates calling him. He has his phone in his hand more times than he can count, and he finds himself wanting to hear Harry’s voice more often than not, but he can’t do it. Every time his finger hovers over the green button he pictures Harry’s worn face turning for the door. Harry most likely doesn’t even want to hear from him. Besides he walked out, he should make the first move, especially since Louis has no idea where they stand.

So he sits. And sometimes he sleeps, but it’s fitful. Most nights he ends up on the floor in the living room. It hurts too much having an empty bed and if he falls asleep on the couch he’ll wake up wondering why Harry hasn’t carried him to bed. Not that that has happened much lately.

Liam comes by for a visit. Louis wants to say it’s a Wednesday but he really doesn’t know. Liam has a pitying look when he sees Louis’ state and immediately makes him a cuppa and some toast to eat. Louis hates it, the pity in his friend’s eyes, but he lets him stay and try to cheer him up.

It’s as futile as trying to sleep.

Liam says that he was worried when he hadn’t heard from Louis in a while and that he hasn’t seen Zayn at all. Louis shrugs unsurprised. Zayn was Harry’s best mate, it would make sense he would choose to comfort him rather than spend time with the friends he made when Louis and Harry became LouisandHarry.

Liam doesn’t stay long after that and leaves with wishes that Louis feels better and comments like ‘I’m always here for you’ and ‘give me a ring if you need anything.’ Louis supposes he’s a good friend, but he doesn’t feel very affected by the sentiment.

After the door closes Louis throws away his barely touched toast and sits back on the couch tossing his phone from hand to hand waiting for anything, something, _Harry_.

●●●●●

It’s exactly a week after Harry walks out that Louis leaves his flat for the first time. He realizes vaguely that he’s been tracking time by the days Harry isn’t home and knows it’s pathetic, a bit sad. He doesn’t care. He can’t stop.

They- he’s out of milk. He doesn’t know why that compels him to go to the store, but he doesn’t think about it as he walks out the door and to the corner store a couple blocks down.

It’s when he’s debating between 1% and whole milk that Louis is alerted that Harry is there. The realization is like a strike of lightning, a jolt making him feel more alive than he has the past week, and he doesn’t think, much like when he came to this store, as he walks to the pasta isle where Harry had apologized to a woman he bumped into. Before he makes himself known, Louis vaguely mulls over the idea that fate had a hand in this, coming to the store and Harry being here. He dismisses it right away. If fate were real they wouldn’t be in this situation, right?

Louis clears his throat and Harry whips his head up, freezes with a box of pasta halfway in the air. He looks at Louis like he’s seeing a ghost, or a catastrophe, or anything unpleasant really. Louis suddenly feels stupid for coming here, to this isle, with Harry looking at him like that.

“Louis,” Harry clears his throat. “Um, hi.” Louis nods his head as Harry lowers his arm and drops the box of pasta into his basket. He has quite a bit of food in there and Louis’ heart physically aches at the implication behind it. He doesn’t know how he’s survived the past week without Harry, so he already feels dead thinking he’ll be alone for another. Of course when Harry was home there was always this, this tension, but having Harry was far better than not having Harry.

“Um,” Harry starts, shifting his basket to his other hand. “How’ve- um, how’ve you been?” he asks carefully and Louis feels his heart collapse at that, the ache giving away to full on numbness.

How has he been? _How has he been?_  Miserable, horrible, wretched. That’s how he’s been. He’s been suffering, choking on tears and craving things that he can’t have, trying to breathe when there’s no air, no Harry. And Harry’s just standing here, in the market, looking nothing like how Louis feels, like he’s fine that they’ve seemingly fallen apart, that Louis thinks he might quite possibly be dying from the divide.

And Harry asks how he’s been like it isn’t completely obvious and like they’re strangers not lovers, like they haven’t spent the past three years of their lives learning anything and everything there is to know about each other. Louis thinks he can recite Harry’s history in his sleep, and from the way things are seeming, Louis feels that’s where he is, in Harry’s past, the history.

He wants to cry.

“I- I have to go,” he stammers, backing away down the aisle. Harry watches him sadly before turning his own way and not looking back. Louis runs the entire way home only realizing he never got the milk he originally left to get when he was curled in a ball under the kitchen table letting tears streak his face.

●●●●●

It hits him two weeks and some days after Harry left what went wrong. It’s a day after he, in an act of self-destruction, looked through some scrap books Harry had made for no apparent reason other than the fact that he liked to see their memories on pages preserving them. At the time Louis called him a sap. That day, looking through them while holding back tears, he both loved and hated Harry for them.

And then it clicked the next day as he was sitting on the couch staring at the wall; their honeymoon faze was well and truly over.

It just hits him like hurricane Katrina hit the states, or the volcano hit Pompeii, the tragedy at Haiti. It’s just there and suddenly things make sense to him.

Every time he thought of Harry, he thought of happy smiles, and lazy days, deep dimples, an infectious laugh, bad jokes, and pouty lips, fun times, and anything good and sweet in the world. As he had flicked through the memories that were wedged in pages that would never be big enough to hold the weight of the memory he started to realize that that’s all he thought of. The happy times.

And now sitting on the couch feeling like he’s been punched he realizes that they haven’t been that way for a long time.

When his mind wanders back to a couple of months ago, all he sees is distance and distance and more distance. There were less cuddles, less sex, less talk, more work, more ‘there’s no time’, more everything else but them. And he doesn’t know how it started, he really doesn’t, maybe it was him staying late at his new job, or maybe it was Harry focusing too much on studies, but it’s suddenly extremely clear, how they never made time for them anymore, and how that led to things becoming worse than he could ever imagine a relationship with _Harry_  of all people could be.

He thinks that and he feels so stupid. It’s simple really, the problem. It’s a simple thing, not enough time, and yet it drove them apart and neither of them even _tried_  to fix it.

His phone’s already in his hand (surprise, surprise) and so it doesn’t take him long to find Niall’s number. It rings four times before his friend picks up and he’s greeted with a mumbled, “Hey Lou, what’s up?”

“Me and Harry haven’t been us for a long time, have we?” He asks, no preamble, no introduction, he just needs an answer.

There’s a thoughtful pause and Niall swallows the food he had in his mouth. “No,” he answers, “you haven’t.”

Louis sighs and drops his head in his hands. It’s not the answer he was wanting but it was the one he was expecting. Vaguely he can here Niall continue eating. “Right, okay,” he breathes, slow and deep. “I’m going to fix this.”

“Good luck, mate,” Niall chirps and it’s genuine and sincere. “And Lou?”

“Yeah?”

“You guys are gonna be okay,” he claims. He sounds like he has all the faith in them, like there’s no other way it can be and Louis thinks that maybe Fate doesn’t have a hand in this, isn’t rooting for them, but Niall is, and having just one person believe that is enough for Louis.

●●●●●

Three hours, a couple purchases, and a short car ride later Louis finds himself pulling into the inn Harry has been staying at. It’s small and simple and Louis can’t think of anything else to describe it as but just as _Harry_. _Harry, Harry, Harry._ That’s all he can think.

It doesn’t take long to talk to the receptionist and find where Harry’s room is, a small cheap suit with a kitchenette. He’s walking there with blood in his ears and his stomach weighing heavy and more thoughts of _Harry, Harry, Harry_. It’s too soon and not nearly soon enough when he knocks on the door.

It opens with a click and then there’s Harry standing right there in front of Louis, and he can’t breathe, or speak, or anything but stand really. He looks a mess, crumpled clothes and sleepy red eyes. Looking at the frown on his face and his greasy hair Louis thinks that maybe he wasn’t as put together as he had thought.

He still can’t say anything. He just stands there and looks at Harry. He notices a crease on his check from a pillow and one wayward curl sticking up in the back of his head. He suddenly feels so stupid standing there and saying nothing when he had spent hours working on ways to fix this, fix them. He’d be damned if he came all the way here and didn’t say anything.

He clears his throat and wrings his hands. “Can I come in?”

It’s so formal and so not Louis and Harry frowns more but lets him pass into the room. It’s small and simple, like the hotel, like the stupid problem they’re in. Harry has claimed the room as his own though; his clothes are flung carelessly around. It’s yet another sign that things might not be exactly peachy with him like Louis had assumed.

Harry’s leaning against a wall with his arms crossed looking expectant and wary and slightly annoyed. Louis wants to wrap him in his arms and kiss his eyelids and run his fingers through his hair and reassure him that they’re going to fix this. He doesn’t. He takes a deep breath and begins.

“We fucked up.”

That’s the beginning and he didn’t think that was what he was going to say, but there it is. It hangs between them and Harry raises his eyebrows.

“We fucked up, and I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. I don’t know exactly how it started, us just avoiding each other, and like not seeing each other and,” he makes a frustrated noise and motions with his hands. He was never good with words and speeches, it was always Harry who did the talking, but he’s going to try, and he hopes Harry has the patience for him. “And,” God, he can’t _think_. Not with the way Harry’s looking at him slightly confused and still wary and well this isn’t going well.

He stops and rubs his hands over his face. “Okay, let me just, well, okay-”

“Lou?” Harry interrupts, quiet. It’s the first time he’s said anything since Louis walked in, and it’s the first time in a while Harry’s spoken to him using so much gentleness and emotion. Louis really, really wants to cry and Harry looks like he wants to walk over. But as much as he’d like that, to have Harry _near_ , close enough to smell and drink in and possibly touch, it can’t happen. Louis’ already a blathering mess with him across the room. He doesn’t think he could handle it if Harry was in his space.

“No, I’m fine Harry, I’m just,” Louis stops and let’s his hands drop to his sides. “I just kind of have a lot to say, and I’m not sure, like, I’m not good with this stuff, and emotions, yeah? So can you, um, just bear with me?”

Harry nods and moves to sit on the end of the small bed occupying the room.

“So yesterday,” Louis speaks, slow and thoughtful, and sure that Harry isn’t going to interrupt him. He doesn’t really know what he’s saying but words are coming out and so he’ll let them. “Yesterday I was looking through those albums you made, of like us the past couples years. And I kinda realized how, like, that’s not us anymore, is it?”

The crinkles between Harry’s eyebrows are prominent and Louis wants to kiss them away.

He continues. “Like, we were so, so happy Haz,” he sighs. “We were so happy. We were that gross cute couple that everyone hated to bring places but everyone secretly envied and I swore not to be but was with you. And, like, I miss that, I miss us. And yesterday I realized _that isn't us anymore_. We’re so distant now. You’re staying at a hotel for Christ’s sake. And that’s both of our faults, because we stopped giving us time. We only had time for work, or school, or being with other friends, or going to the salon, or I don’t know, anything but us. You get that?”

It looks like Harry does. He nods and there’s understanding there and maybe he came to that conclusion too. It’s a relief, to have them on the same page again.

“It’s so stupid isn’t it?” Louis asks. He sits next to Harry carefully, keeping a bit away, distance he wishes he can close. “We were so stupid about it, weren’t we? I mean it’s just so easy to fix when it was then. Like, instead of ignoring you I could have seen what you were doing and maybe I could have taken a day off or maybe we could have taken a trip on the weekends. But we didn’t and that’s complete shit isn’t it? Like I’m so stupid for not trying more, for not coming to you when I knew something was wrong and hoping it would just fade away.”

“You’re not stupid, Lou,” Harry says and Louis glares.

“I feel stupid,” he snaps. “I’ve been so miserable without you and I feel so stupid for letting that happen. And, like, when I saw you at the market, and you looked fine, I just, I felt so stupid then too. I feel stupid now sitting here with you saying all this and I don’t even know if you want to fix this like I do. I don’t know if you’ve been as miserable as me, and that kills me. I want to know everything about you all the time and now I don’t and I just can’t _function_  because of it.”

“I’ve been miserable too,” Harry simply states. “I mean look at me Lou, I look a mess.”

Louis doesn’t deny it but he still won’t relent. “But at the market, you seemed fine, almost happy,” he says and he can’t help the hurt edge to the words.

“What?” Harry asks. He sounds incredulous and taken aback and Louis doesn’t know what to do with that. He waits for him to understand, and when he does it’s a flash of wide eyes and Louis nods his head. “Oh, Lou, that was like the first day I went out in like a week,” he clarifies. “The inn keeper needed to tidy up the room, said I was killing her business staying cooped up, and so I showered and just went.”

Louis feels like in the seconds (more like minutes with the way Harry speaks) that it took Harry to explain, their roles were reversed. He’s confused and slightly shocked. “What?”

“You have to believe me Lou,” Harry almost pleads. “I haven’t left here since. I’ve been miserable, really. And I miss you, I miss us too. Believe me I do. I just, I don’t know how to get back to it.”

The situation may not really warrant it, but, Louis smiles. It’s small and fragile and it doesn’t really stick, but it’s there and it’s something, and it’s more than the past months, and _Harry smiles back_. It’s a tiny relief and Louis feels like he can breathe a bit more. Because _Harry missed him_ , _Harry missed them_ , and _Harry smiled back_. And that’s something.

“Do you want to try to fix us?” He asks. He knows he sounds hopeful and he knows he shouldn’t because Harry could still say it’s not worth the hassle, but it’s there and he really can’t help it. “Do you think we can work on us and try?”

Harry looks thoughtful and it turns Louis’ stomach. Hope can be a bitch like that he supposes. It’s a while before Harry answers and when he does Louis’ stomach stops turning and Hope crushes his lungs. “No,” Harry breathes, “no I won’t try to fix us, Lou.”

Louis can’t breathe. He can’t breathe and he thinks he might pass out and wow does he feel stupid. He presses his hands to his eyes, tries to keep the hurricanes there at bay, but they’re strong. He feels the pressure from the building and he doesn’t know what to do.

Harry keeps speaking. “I don’t want to fix us,” he repeats. “But I want to work on our relationship.” The hurricane in Louis’ head drops off and he looks up confused. Harry gives a small breathless laugh when he sees Louis face and reaches out tentatively to wipe the few rain drops that made it onto Louis’ cheeks away. Louis feels like his cheeks are burning. If he’s the storm, Harry’s the sun, and his heat is burning the grey clouds and wet sadness away.

“I don’t understand,” he chokes out.

“We’re not robots, are we?” Harry asks dropping his hand. Louis wants to grab it and put it back, have him spread his fingers and take what he wants, take it all. “We can’t just be fixed, like a computer, like a robot. We’re humans and I like the way we are, I like you, I _love_  you. I just don’t love how our relationship is. I want to work on that.”

The tears are back in Louis’ eyes even as he rolls them because Harry _would_  put it that way, but this time it’s just the shower before the rainbow. Harry loves him. He still loves him. He still loves him and he wants them to still be together and work on their relationship. He feels like he’s finding his pot of gold.

“I, um,” he sniffles, laughs. “I have a surprise, for us.” He feels for the papers in his back pocket and pulls them out showing them to Harry. “I was hoping you’d want to, um, work on us, and so I thought this might help.”

Harry looks up at Louis incredulously and Louis gives a small shrug. “It’s only for a week, and the hotel isn’t too great, but, it’s Paris, and, well, the City of Love can’t hurt, can it?”

“Oh, Lou,” Harry says, and they’re hugging, touching. Louis thinks he’s having an out of body experience, but no this is Harry, and he’s being held. There are strong arms around him and a scent of purely Harry (although it’s tainted a bit from the plain hotel smell, but that’ll come out soon) and there’s curls brushing his cheek, and it’s perfect.

They don’t stop touching. It’s like once they’ve started they can’t stop. They slowly peel away their layers until it’s nothing but them, _HarryandLouis_. They spend the night relearning each other and whispering promises and kissing ‘I Love You’s into their skin. They have their names on their lips and in their breath and it’s overwhelming and slow and everything they haven’t said and have regretted.

When they’re relaxed and sated, happy being in the same bed, in familiar arms, they talk. They mention everything and anything, the ‘whys’ and ‘ifs’, the ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’, but mostly the ‘now’ and it’s perfect.

It’s perfect because it feels like they’re coming home, and it feels like they’re falling for each other all over again.

●●●●●

“But how did you know where I was staying?”  
“I _might_  have hacked into your bank account to check where the withdrawals were being taken.”  
“Lou!”  
“What! It was with _love_. It was _romantic_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
